Called to Be Saints: An Invitation to Christian Maturity

by Gordon T. Smith

But it seems to me there is still a gap when it comes to the second question: What does it mean to be mature in our faith? And so this book focuses specifically on that question, contributing to the discussion of the goal or vision of the Christian life.

The whole of the New Testament assumes that a Christian is someone who grows toward spiritual maturity.

An even more profound problem is that most evangelical Christians have an understanding of conversion that presumes they are “good to go.”

Evangelical Christians seem particularly vulnerable to perspectives that do not call for critical theological reflection.

Spiritual disciplines or practices have meaning only as a means to an end. And they have little meaning if we lack clarity about the end. For every spiritual practice we engage in, we should be able to speak of the “grace” we seek through this discipline. And if we speak of a specific grace, we need to be clear what it is we hope—speaking theologically—for God to do in us. Spiritual discipline makes sense only if we have a clear and substantive doctrine of sanctification—if we are clear on the goal, or telos, of the Christian life.

Each time the Scriptures are opened, read and preached, some vision of what it means to be human should be expressed.

God is out to make for himself a people who reflect his holiness, who are marked by righteousness, and who live in justice and the shalom of God.

To be complete in Christ, to be “perfect,” is quite simply to be what one has been created to be.

The call to perfection is the invitation to be that for which we were created.

This is also the message of the apostle Paul. His benediction to the Thessalonian believers is straightforward and comprehensive: May God sanctify you entirely, he writes (1 Thess 5:23). In Romans 12:1 he urges his readers to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. And the letter to the Colossians from beginning to end is a call to spiritual maturity in Christ, captured eloquently in the affirmation that they have come to faith in Christ—they have received Christ as Lord (Col 2:6), but now that they have come to faith, he urges them to grow up in their faith, rooted and anchored in Christ. Indeed, in the preceding verses Paul describes his own ministry as preaching, struggling and suffering to this end: that they would be complete, perfect and mature in Christ (Col 1:28).

In 2 Peter we are also reminded that new birth is not an end but a beginning; our election or calling in Christ and to Christ is for a particular purpose—maturity in Christ. To put it more bluntly, our conversion has meaning only if it leads to the goal of conversion: namely, this very spiritual maturity (2 Pet 1:10-11).

one of the abiding themes of this book is an insistence that we cannot equate moral formation with spiritual formation.

spiritual formation is not synonymous with virtue or character development.

The biblical vision of holiness is one in which spiritual maturity is the fruit ultimately not of human effort toward an objective standard (a holy law, perhaps), but rather human response to the call and enabling of God.

When it comes to the life we have in God, God is the actor. It is all of God. It is all gift. But this does not mean the human person is passive or a nonactor. We can and should take human agency seriously. However, the genius of human action is that it is an act of response to and participation in the actions of God.

Calvin insists that the dangers of perfectionism do not mean we do not speak of our objective. Rather, he suggests that we speak of it as precisely that—the goal toward which we run.6 He echoes the language of Paul in Philippians: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14). Though the objective is not reached, it is nevertheless pursued.

We can use the language of perfection and completeness and see it as a call to excellence. Having identified the scourge of perfectionism that has often plagued this discussion, we must not let a fear of perfectionism keep from us from articulating a vibrant and compelling vision for Christian holiness.

Christian spirituality is a life of radical dependence on the Spirit. We do not live self-created or self-constructed lives, but rather lives of active response to the grace of God.

The call to holiness comes from the Father as an invitation to participate in the life of Christ Jesus and to do so in radical dependence on the grace of the Spirit.

we speak of maturity, or perfection, as the fulfillment of creation.

Thomas Aquinas noted, “A thing is said to be perfect in so far as it attains its proper end, which is the final perfection of the thing.”8 It is to the glory of God that we be fully and completely who we were created to be.

Personal maturity in Christ will always be found in dynamic communion with the faith community.

The church is not merely an instrument of the kingdom; it is also an embodiment and foretaste of the kingdom. And so the church is the fruit of the in-breaking of the kingdom in the world.

The individual is not lost within the corporate identity of the church but rather flourishes in this community as one who gives and receives the love of God.

we are on this journey together not merely as companions on the road but as mutually dependent sisters and brothers growing up into Christ as each one contributes (Eph 4:13-16).

A key thread that must run through any discussion of maturity in Christ is the formative power of suffering.

It is often said that if we are being theological about something, we are not likely being practical. To the contrary: theology is very practical. Good theology fosters wisdom and thus the capacity to live well.

We are always called to holiness in our own time and generation, and culture is certainly a factor in our understanding and practice of spiritual maturity.

Maturity in Christ will therefore reflect both continuity and discontinuity with local culture.

the Christian life is lived out of the fundamental experience of being united with Christ in his death and resurrection, the very meaning of a Christian baptism (Rom 6).

I will stress that what makes the Christian a Christian is participation in the life of Christ Jesus, or union with Christ.

Three of the Gospels—Matthew, Mark and Luke—clearly profile the identity of the Christian as that of a disciple, one who follows Jesus and then in turn lives under the reign of Christ, that is, the kingdom of God.

And indeed, to follow is to serve and obey.

So, then, to be a Christian is to be a disciple of Jesus, and a mature disciple is one who knows Jesus through the fruit of learning—specifically a learning that leads to intimate knowledge; loves Jesus such that Christ is the first love and the deepest love, the source of one’s greatest delight and joy; serves Jesus such that all that one does is in response to Christ’s call and an expression of allegiance to him.

To be the church is to be a learning community that seeks together in faith to know Jesus, to grow together in love for Jesus and to align our lives, mission and way of being in the world to the in-breaking of the reign of Christ.

there is no conceivable split between knowing Jesus as “Savior” and knowing him as “Lord.”

We are called to live in and under the reign of Christ;

And he makes this staggering observation: just as Jesus abides in the Father, we are to abide in Jesus. In other words, the quality of life within the triunity of God is precisely the kind of life we can have in Christ Jesus.

Rather we participate in the life of Jesus—literally, not metaphorically. In fact, this is the very language we find in 2 Peter 1:4, where sanctification is spoken of as participation in the life of God, indeed, in the divine nature.

Note that the Christian life is defined as knowing or gaining Christ, and this “knowledge” is not a reference to intellectual understanding but to an experiential encounter with Christ.

Jesus’ life, death and resurrection mark us; they are tattooed on our bodies, etched into our innermost beings. How to describe this? Paul actually creates a new word—the word translated here “becoming like him,” meaning to conform oneself or make oneself like him in his death—is used nowhere else in the New Testament.

The one who is the focus of our attention is the crucified and ascended Lord.

Yes, there is a departure from the way of sin and, yes, there is a cleansing of conscience (Heb 9:9), but as Johnson stresses, we need to speak not only negatively but positively about what is accomplished. We are freed from sin, but to what end? Clearly, it is to enter into the power and presence of God.

We are not merely followers; we are not merely coworkers with Christ; we are not merely imitators of Christ. We are one with Christ, members of his body (Eph 5:29-30).

Spiritual formation, then, is the cultivation of this union with Christ.

Without an emphasis on union with Christ, spiritual formation will be a frustrated effort to become like Christ.

The grace we seek is not so much to be like Christ as to live in dynamic union with Christ, abiding in him as he abides in us (Jn 15:4).

A Christian is one who, in response to Christ’s call to “come, follow me,” seeks to know, love and serve Christ. For many, to be a convert is to respond to this call and to choose to orient one’s life in response to it. And this is good—very good. Yet our only hope for transformation is that we be drawn into the life of Christ such that we live our lives in him, in union with Christ individually and together with others who are growing up into him who is our head.

This is what our baptism speaks of and points to: a radical identification with the life of Christ. In and through the waters of baptism we are brought into dynamic union with Christ crucified and Christ risen

From this, then, we can speak of two important theological categories, asking, what does it mean to be justified and, further, what does it mean to be sanctified?